I recently wrapped up work on the Corporate Politics 101 series for this blog. At least, I wrapped up this phase of it. And I did so with a rebuke of office politics and the people who play the game. But I think there’s a bit more to say on the topic. I wanted to say a word about why I avoid office politics. And why readers should avoid them, too.
Let’s talk about all that.
In short, I’ll narrow it down to two key reasons.
1. Office politics are the realm of the incompetent.
To anyone who works in a white-collar office at a company with more than about 50 employees, the operations of office politics seem clear enough. People who are bad at their jobs – maybe even completely incompetent at those jobs – do it to advance through the ranks. Or to get the job in the first place. They market themselves. They get others to do their work for them. And in extreme cases, they simply steal credit for the work of others.
Yeah, yeah. I made a similar point in my previous post. But some people might reply that far from everyone who plays office politics falls into the category of people bad at their jobs. Some do it to take a shortcut to the next level. Perhaps even because they’re good at their jobs and have been overlooked because of the sneaky politicians around them. The business press loves this reply.
In my view, that’s hardly an excuse. Do I really want to spend my time playing games with these kinds of people? Do I really want to bother with the whole ‘cloak and dagger’ routine? And do any of you want to do that? After all, the further a person advances in this kind of environment, the worse it gets. Don’t I have better things to do? Don’t you?
2. Office politics run contrary to healthy ways to think about career and identity.
A long time ago, I wrote a post on why I left academia. I listed lots of reasons. But one key premise was that I wanted to avoid making my career central to my life and identity. I wanted to focus on other things. And it’s almost impossible to do that as an academic.
Playing office politics blows all this up. It means putting endless time and effort into a job or career path. And when people do this, they make that job or career path central to how they think about themselves. Again, that’s how it works for almost all academics. And, again, I wanted to leave that part of academia.
But to a former academic, this all looks a bit sad and pitiful when people in the world of white-collar offices do it. At least an academic can tell a story about how they’re serving knowledge and wisdom. Maybe the story is a bit off. But it sounds plausible enough for many. What plausible story can the office worker tell? No one has a ‘calling’ or a ‘mission’ to be a supply chain manager or project manager. And even those working for non-profits with lofty missions can’t tell a plausible enough story. Those orgs can even turn out bad in special ways.
Some Concluding Remarks
Let me end with a couple of remarks. First, to stave off a particular sort of misguided, indignant reply, let me note that when I say ‘office politics’ here, I’m talking about the petty politicking and rivalries that happen between people and departments. I’m not talking about collective workplace organizing. Obviously I’m not going to condemn (or avoid) that.
Mostly what I’m calling for here is an avoidance of petty workplace games that people assign an outsized sense of importance in their lives. My job isn’t who I am. And if I need to make my job central to who I am in order to advance my career, maybe my career doesn’t need advancement in that way. Maybe I can get a good paycheck, put in a reasonable amount of work, spend my time on things more important to me (e.g., my partner and family, my friends, my projects and orgs), and live a happier life.
Maybe that’s what ‘quiet quitting’ amounts to.
